Looking for the report on the bilbao game in the people yesterday,they had a report on every other friendly except ours,even the Newcastle friendly which was abandoned,got almost a full page,Spurs game was not even Mentioned,and it was'nt in my Mail on Sunday either.makes me wonder.
I would rather we were on the box than in some third rate rag nobody had read for years, until the News of The World closed.
The Fail covered it on their website: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...Bilbao-1-Luka-Modric-given-heros-welcome.html
If you want to talk about an anti-Spurs agenda, read the section dedicated to us in The Grauniad's preview of the new season. It's as if there's a bet to see how many snide comments they can cram into it.
The media absolutely love Spurs, they are always creaming themselves over your European campaign and 'Arry. Try supporting Chelsea or Arsenal if you think the media are anti-Spurs
What a load of bollocks. The media did what they always do when an English team gets a good result in Europe and ranted about it. That doesn't make us favoured and you're totally ignoring the constant negative press that we get, including the blatant tapping up that they indulge in.
The Spurs fans on that thread are talking out their backsides. The media in this country love to build you up to knock you straight back down, with some clubs more than others. Even as a Chelsea fan, I can see there is an anti-Arsenal agenda in the media, as there is with Chelsea. Given what they spend, Arsenal have no right to be even competing with Chelsea, City or United let alone beating them to trophies etc. Every year we are told of this power shift and how Spurs and Liverpool are so much better than them and how they won't get top 4 yet this has yet to happen. Arsenal were heavily criticised when they lost to Barca by the narrowest of margins, yet when United were beaten by them people just accepted they were the better team. Spurs were made out to be heroes despite the fact they lost a staggering 5-0 in a CL Quarter final (the heaviest defeat of any team at that stage may I add), if that happened to Chelsea, Arsenal or even Liverpool there would be shockwaves in the media and hell to pay I don't know any other clubs that get so much bad press or stick in the media than Chelsea or Arsenal, only Newcastle at times come close but theres is justifiable
Arsenal massively outspend Spurs and most of the rest of the Premier League every season, DL. I've told you this in the past, yet you refuse to accept it. Prior to Citeh's influx of cash, the Big 4 (RIP) had far, far higher wage bills than everyone else, so they were bound to do better, especially as they poached the best players from those trying to catch them. Arsenal weren't criticised for being battered by Barca, but because they didn't manage a single shot in the Nou Camp. Man Utd got off lightly, in my opinion, especially with regards to Ferguson's team selection, but I don't think that Arsenal were hard done by, except by their own fans, perhaps. Chelsea should actually get far, far worse press than they do. Your owner is dubious, at best, you have an enormous wage bill and you still don't play particularly attractive football, though it's often effective.
I'm sorry SNOIM, but that's just irrelevant. You outspend our combined transfer and wage spending by quite a large amount and the higher wage bill allows you to attract and keep players that we couldn't. You've had the fifth highest wage bill in the Premier League for a season. Prior to the latest figures, your bill was £104m, Liverpool's was £103m and City's was £83m. http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/31609751 You didn't manage a shot at the Nou Camp because you couldn't get or keep the ball. You were vastly outplayed in the first leg and only some dubious officialdom kept you in it. Messi scored a perfectly good goal and one of your defenders made a foul that would clearly have denied a clear goalscoring opportunity, prior to your comeback. There's no disgrace in losing to Barca, especially for Arsenal. They're a nightmare for you, as they play in a very similar style, but are much better. You can't try to nullify them, without compromising your own approach. The real disgrace was in the way that Wenger messed up the group stage, resulting in the possibility of drawing them.
As PNP has already alluded to, Arsenal are just not set up to defeat Barca. You try to play a similar style, but as PNP says - you're not in the same league. Mourinho showed the only way to beat Barca when he was with Inter. Pretty, it ain't, But at the moment, they are so good - it's the only way any team has a chance to beat them. Taking them on at their own game is only going to have one result - you will come second!
That's partly rubbish. Firstly, Nobody ever expected us to get as far as we did in the CL. Yes, we we're beaten by a better side, although the result was slanted because that idiot, Bambi managed to get sent off so early; and, IMO, because we got our tactics all wrong. Most of the stick that Chelsea get in the media is self-inflicted. Either by your megalomaniac owner, and his underhand tactics,or by one of those two idiots, Terry and Cashley.
We pay better wages because we've got better players and more money so we pay better wages. Circular much? I've already shown you that your wages have been better than Liverpool and City until last season, NSIOM. The link is from the Guardian website, who used figures from Companies House. If they're wrong, then the clubs are committing fraud. City and Chelsea outspend you in that department by some margin now, buy Liverpool and United aren't too far ahead. You got the victory against Barcelona because of poor refereeing decisions. They should have been at least two goals up, having had a perfectly good one disallowed and you should have been down to ten men. Somehow, you lot and the media tried to make something of a slightly harsh sending off that went against you, though. You may be right about the Carling Cup loss destroying your confidence and morale, making a loss to them in the competition later on inevitable, but the mistakes in the group stage may have hurt you prior to that. If you'd have taken the fourth game seriously and put the game to bed, then maybe your squad could've concentrated more on other competitions? It was a bad mistake by Wenger, for my money.
In a nutshell, Sami. You were comprehensively outplayed, and outclassed, in both legs. You got a very lucky win in the first leg, and then were systematically taken apart, in the second leg.
Neither of us knows whether your wage bill is higher than Liverpool's this season or not, so it currently stands at one season, SNIOM. Your revenue was boosted by £156m of property sales for the year that you've chosen to quote revenue on, coincidentally, so it's not a reasonable or sustainable comparison. Your revenue will be higher than Liverpool's, of course, but not by the same margin. Man Utd may have a wage bill of 20% more than you, but how much higher is your bill than ours or Everton's, the clubs that are supposed to try and dislodge you from the CL places? 64% and over 100%. Haven't you done well! The sending off of van Persie was harsh, but he definitely knew that the whistle had been blown. You could see from the ridiculous shot. One of your centre-halves, I forget which, made a very poor challenge in the first leg that denied a clear goalscoring opportunity, though. That and Messi's disallowed goal more than made up for van Persie's sending off, as you would've been dead and buried in the first leg. I understand why you've chosen to single out Bendtner for criticism, but I feel that Wenger has to shoulder the blame there, too. He didn't play the Dane nearly enough and when he did he was often out on the wing, for some unknown reason. It clearly hurt his confidence and damaged his form, just as moving Nasri out of Fabregas' role hurt the Frenchman and dropping Chamakh for large parts of the season, after a good goalscoring start did. Wenger's transformed your club, but he's making some poor choices now and something needs to change. He may just need a new assistant, as that seems to have helped Ferguson down the years.
That wage bill is for last season, SNIOM. It's the same link that I posted, but mine was just the figures, minus the article. That's the first year where yours is lower than Liverpool's, though I'm not sure exactly how many years that goes back. It's not fair to include massive, one-off payments when comparing revenue to wage expenditure, as you're not giving a consistent view of your yearly earnings. You won't get that amount again this year and it was used to pay off some of your debt. Yes, technically you have been exactly where you should be and there should be a massive gap behind you, going by money spent. That's my point. You're not doing anything that you shouldn't be expected to do. You do have enough revenue to compete with those above you, though. The said can't really be said for those that are trying to catch you. It doesn't matter how long it was between the whistle being blown and van Persie kicking the ball away. It was a harsh booking, especially as it resulted in a red card, but he knew that the whistle had gone when he booted the ball. That's a yellow, by the book. You're right in asserting that Arsenal may have had an inspired comeback if they were down to ten men and losing 2-0 to Barca, but you also could've had one in the second leg after losing van Persie... Not sure about what you're saying about Gazidis, as I'm not entirely familiar with the current set-up surrounding transfers at Arsenal. All of your signings do seem to be consistent with Wenger's vision for the club, though. Up to £15m and a 40% sell-on clause?! Who negotiated that one for Southampton, Daniel Levy?
Liverpool's wage bill that year was £103m, SNIOM. http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/31609751 Wages are less than one third of group turnover because of a £156m property payout. That's not going to be the same this season, is it? Your wage bill will still be roughly half of your revenue, as it has been for years. Van Persie reacted to the whistle and then took a very uncharacteristic swipe at the ball. Had the whistle not gone, do you really think that he'd have done what he did? You can try to suggest that your team may have pulled off some spectacular, yet unlikely, comeback, but the officials' decisions were in your favour, overall. We cannot know what could've happened, but we know what did happen, when you benefited more than you lost. Why is Mertesacker's price tag so low? Contract expiring? I have to say though, he doesn't convince me. We haven't bought anyone because we haven't sold enough players and our targets are all asking for too much money, by all accounts. The suggestion is that we're selling Palacios to Stoke for £8m and signing your old mate Diarra from Real as his replacement, but it hasn't happened yet. We're Spurs. We don't do anything the easy way!
I disagree. Van Persie was clean through on goal, shanked his 'shot' wide with his right foot and didn't react in any negative fashion to such a glaring miss. He knew that if he'd have buried it then it wouldn't have counted. Squillaci's poor, I agree. No idea why Wenger felt it was better to spend money on him than to keep Gallas. You'd be better off spending money on Cahill, Jagielka or Samba than signing Mertesacker, in my opinion. There's been no official word on what our budget is, but I believe that we need to trim our squad, lower the wage bill and make sure that we don't have any players outside the 25 man limit. Keane, Dos Santos, Palacios, Hutton and possibly one or two others are just taking up space and using up cash, at the moment. They're not in Redknapp's plans and that's reason enough to ship them out, rightly or wrongly.
The problem, for us, is that Harry doesn't seem to have the patience to let these players, like Dos Santos, settle and mature. Look, for instance, at Nani. He was so poor in his first season at Utd. His attitude seemed all wrong, he couldn't settle, etc. Seemed like a complete waste of money. However, Fergie, to his credit, saw the potential - stuck with him, and look at what a player he has there now. I haven't seen that much of GDS to comment. But, if he really is that talented, then I think Redknapp should try a little patience with him.
Not this 5-0 **** again! 10 men for over an hour...(Goon on this thread using RVP's sending off as a reason/excuse!)...I might add! We conceded 4 goals with 10 men against Inter and RM, we still scored 3 against one of them...so you expected at least 3 goals against the other aswell.
